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Lawmakers politely take beating during Obama's combative State of Union

Lawmakers were expecting a tongue-lashing from President Obama, and when it came on Tuesday night, they politely took their beating.

The president took advantage of Congress’s deep unpopularity, using his State of the Union address to hector lawmakers on the gridlock that has frozen Washington and angered the public.

“The divide between this city and the rest of the country… seems to get worse every year,” Obama told the lawmakers sitting before him.

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The combative and direct tone of Obama’s speech kept members of Congress, particularly Republicans, in their chairs for stretches at a time, but it provoked no outbursts and no “You lie” moments.

Lawmakers leapt to their feet when Obama praised American soldiers and lauded the nation’s spirit and resilience. Yet when the president told Congress that most Americans expected “nothing will get done this year,” there were only knowing chuckles. And when Obama called the debt ceiling debate that roiled Washington last summer a “fiasco,” he was greeted with stony silence.

Democrats lapped up most of Obama’s policy proposals, which Republicans greeted with chagrin.

“It was a very divided speech, trying to divide the country instead of unite the country,” the third-ranking House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), told The Hill afterward.

For members who came into the election-year speech with minimal expectations, the president was only half the attraction. The other half was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat severely wounded in a shooting a year ago who was making her final appearance in the House chamber as a member of Congress.

With the president striking a populist chord throughout the speech, there were few moments when both parties in the chamber stood as one to applaud. Republicans seemed to roll their eyes at Obama’s claim to have approved fewer regulations than President George W. Bush, and they sat on their hands when the president proposed to use war savings to increase domestic spending and pay down the deficit.

But for the most part, Republicans reacted coolly to Obama, and when the speech ended, they tossed the blame for Washington’s failures right back at him.

“When the president referred implicitly if not explicitly to gridlock and to dysfunction in Washington, he too must take his share of responsibility for that,” freshman Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) said. “He has chosen to emphasize areas that he knows very well Republicans in Congress will not find easy to join him in.”